Secret Love Letters
by sondering
Summary: Winter secretly keeps her love letters to Jacin to herself. But what if one day her letter(s) go missing, and Jacin is the person that it gets sent to? Loosely based off of Jenny Han's "To all the boys I've loved before."
1. Chapter 1

_Dear Jacin,_

 _I like you._

 _No, wait._

 _I_ _love_ _you._

 _I don't know how to say this, though. Well, I guess I just said it. Huh?_

 _What I mean is, I didn't want to be the first person to say it because I didn't want to be that gal to possibly jeopardize our friendship. Heck, we're best friends for Christ's sake, and if I were to lose that, I'd blame myself forever._

 _But then I thought, if both of us felt this way about each other and had the same notion, no one would fess up. And we'd both be the ones that got away from each other._

 _I wouldn't want that._

 _I know that I'm - you know that I'm kind of a hopeless romantic. At least, for you. That I'm crazy. That I'm mentally ill. That I hallucinate. That I-_

 _That I shouldn't even be writing this letter to you. Because I'm exactly those things and more if I mail this to you._

 _That I'm exactly those things and left embarrassed if I mail this to you._

 _If I'm exactly those things and heartbroken if I mail this to you._

 _But I know you too much for you to do that. For you to break my heart, right?_

 _I really really really hope I'm right._

 _You wouldn't judge me, would you? You would_ _ **never**_ _judge me. You never did judge me. Why would you ever judge me now?_

 _I sound so psychotic. So hopeless. So naive. So foolish. So obsessive._

 _And I know you hate for me to say this but, so_ _ **crazy**_ _and_ _ **stupid**_ _!_

 _Because why would someone whose future included being a doctor, have a family, being well off, being whole want to merge with one who is full of illness, unpredictability, not whole, craziness._

 _Just picturing_ _ **us**_ _would be crazy._

 _But I can't help but picturing us. I'm not stupid, naive, or crazy for saying this but that's what happens when you fall in love with someone. I know, if anything, that I_ _ **am**_ _in love with you, Jacin Clay._

 _I know there's a 50/50 that you're not in love with me. And although I try to accept it, it breaks my heart every time. And then I try to get you out my mind. But it seems like almost immediately you call or FaceTime me, and I swear that sunshine smile and those icy eyes that ease up make me fall all over again. I swear every time (I think) you compliment me through very hidden careless jokes that it makes my heart beat ten times faster._

 _But then it makes me feel weak again. Submissive. It makes me feel like my mind is controlling me, and I can't control my mind. That this is just another upper hand my mind has against me. That lingering feeling in the back of my head saying to not get my silly fantasies and dreams up too far in the clouds because it won't happen._

 _It won't happen._

 _Regardless if I'm supposedly the most beautiful girl at school. That doesn't mean anything. I want to know if I'm beautiful at all to you. If I matter at all. If I'm special. If I'm more than just your best friend. Because you've never uttered those words to me, as vain as I may come off. But really, it's out of desperateness. I'm not holding anything back anymore as I write this letter with my whole heart. It's not like you'll see it anyway._

 _It's almost like a magic trick: with this letter that I'm pouring out the entirety of my heart, thoughts, and opinions on, it will release me from this curse. From your curse. From this mess. From my mess by you. From this trance. From your trance._

 _But I know begrudgingly, almost as if a child had been told for the first time that Santa Claus was not real, that this little dream of mine won't come true. Both the imagination of us and the imagination that this letter will set me free from the mere image of us._

 _So I'll keep writing these letters for me to have if I feel like this one isn't enough, and one of these days, I hope it sets me free._

 _A part of me hopes with all my heart that it will set me free._

 _But a part of me wishes no._

 _No, I don't wanna be set free. I don't want to let go from the visions of you and I. I don't want to let go of the nightmare visions you chase away. I don't want to let go of the bond we have and can possibly have. I don't want to let go of those perfect hallucinations of us just as much as I wish I could break free from those horrible hallucinations you eventually break me out of._

 _I feel I want to let go just because I fear of being rejected. Because out of all the boys I could pick, I chose you, Jacin Clay. I chose you. The boy that lives just across the street from me. The boy who I could easily slip this letter to on their window._

 _But there's something in me saying I shouldn't let go, this feeling_ _ **won't**_ _let me go._

 _I don't know. I'm getting dizzy just from writing all of this. The mind is a complex one._

 _My mind is a stupid, imaginative, manipulative, foolish, and cruel one._

 _But I hope that for once, it's right._

 _Love, Winter._

* * *

 **This is only a one-shot (that can become a short story depending on if you all think I should continue it). I just decided that when I'm not writing on the Rampion Boyz Chronicles, I could write a small one-shot to practice my writing. I kind of got this idea from Jenny Han's "To all the boys I've loved before" book, which is really good so far and I'd totally recommend. All credit belongs to her, of course. Please favorite and review if you liked this one-shot and think I should continue on with it!**


	2. Chapter 2

_Dear Winter,_

 _You seem to not want to look me in the eye anymore. Although, I understand. I wish it was't this way though._

 _Magically, your letter that you tried to keep a secret was ironically mailed to me. The boy across the street from you. I know it wasn't you, obviously. Or the mailman. Or the mail-woman._

 _I know this because it was Levana. Your step-mom._

 _Just when I was getting ready to come up my driveway, I hear Levana's voice like a dozen drowning bells, calling out towards me. I knew you were at some after school club, so you wouldn't be getting out till another hour or so._

 _I turn around and she was on our grass._

 _There was awkward silence and I dreaded holding her gaze._

 _I walked up to her of course, and she had a white envelope in her hand with an address attached to it at the top._

 _And then she says, "The mailman probably mistakes my address for yours, but I think this letter is for you, Sir Clay."_

 _She says this like she already knew what was in the letter - in which she did. I reluctantly take it because she''s saying this too knowingly, too cunningly. Like she was up to something. In which she was._

 _I really wished I never opened this letter, not because I didn't want to, but out of respect for your wishes. And then this tension between us would've never happened. I would be oblivious to the fact that you were in love with me. You could look me in my eyes. I wish you don't run away every time we're in close vicinity. We could walk in the hallways together and talk with such causality that I crave to have it back. I crave to have you back, Winter._

 _But I couldn't help but read it, and once I read it, I couldn't stop reading it over and over again. Despite me seeing the stained tears on your perfect high boned cheeks when you first came outside that day and stood in realization that your letter went missing. That it was sent to me._

 _I felt like a traitor. I felt like what I did was the ultimate betrayal._

 _But I felt relieved, in a sense. At ease, finally not at war with the thoughts and feelings in my head thinking "does she love me? Does she love me not? Is it mutual or is it one-sided?"_

 _But just like you acting different towards me, you don't know how much some of the confessions in your letter stung._

 _Like when you questioned if I'd ever judge you._

 _Like when you debated on whether I was capable of breaking your heart._

 _Like when you said it was a 50/50 chance I wasn't in love with you._

 _Why would you ever question my love for you?_

 _It was more of a 50/50 chance that you weren't in love with me. The step-daughter of a wealthy tyrant. The most beautifulest girl in our junior class. Full of elegance, grace, intelligence. Did you think I was immune to those things? Did you think I never saw it? Did I ever see illness and hallucinations when around you? Have I ever done something that made you doubt the unwavering and unconditional love I have for you? Where did I go wrong? Was it the fact that I was never straightforward about my feelings all these years? That I never told you you were beautiful, never gave you compliments like best friends should regardless of their hidden feelings for one another or not, or the fact that I've never said those three forbidden words?_

 _I'm sorry for never doing those things, but you really can't blame me. Not when I fear if I made the first move that you'd reject me. Not when Levana could take you away from me because of her own big dreams of marrying you off to that Aimery guy as soon as we get out of high school. Not when I'm so scared as to touch or talk to you within her presence in fear that she knows I care about you too much. That she'll turn me against you. That out of all her properties across the States, she'll decide to ship you from across the boarder._

 _No, I can't have that happening._

 _Winter, don't beat yourself up about it. About me. About you. About us, if there could ever be an us at this point. I just need you to communicate with me again. I need you to recognize me with those captivating eyes and that enchanting smile that captured my heart long before you became the most beautiful girl in our town._

 _I don't care if you hallucinate about white dead wolves in the midnight hour, nor do I care if you're arguing with me that the walls are indeed bleeding._

 _I don't care if you're mentally ill. That doesn't make you stupid. That does not give you any less of a experience with love. Love doesn't discriminate._

 _No matter what your step-mom and what people at school may say, you're not crazy. And if you are, you're a beautiful and unique crazy. You're my crazy._

 _You aren't naive. You're just an ordinary girl who has a normal crush on her ordinary guy best friend._

 _You aren't stupid, because if loving me makes you stupid, then maybe I am too._

 _That's right, Trouble. I love you._

 _I love you. _

_Please, talk to me again._

 _Please, look me in the eye again._

 _Please, walk with me again._

 _Please, acknowledge me again._

 _Everything will be okay._

 _But most of all, please read this letter. And when you do, don't throw it away. And make sure you give me an idea that you read this._

 _Love, Jacin._

* * *

 **I'm honestly taking my small one-shot idea and just rolling with it. After all, this is only a filler story, you could say. One for where I can free write about anything involving the Lunar Chronicles while I'm not focusing on the Rampion Boyz. There will be a few more chapters to this, though. Thank you for the reviews, they really do make my day! Please favorite, follow, and review this short story if you like it :).**

 **QOTD: What's your favorite book and why? Mines has to be between The Book Thief, All the Bright Places, and Everyday by David** **Levithan. But I think Every day might be my #1. All of those books invite creativity with a good dose of reality, if that makes sense. I guess what I'm trying to say is that all of them are pretty relatable and realistic, and I think those type of books turn out to be the best ones. The books you can relate to the most.**


	3. Chapter 3

_Dear Winter,_

 _It's been more than fifteen days since I got your letter._

 _It's been more than ten days since I sent you a letter._

 _And it's been more than fourteen days since we've talked._

 _Since we laughed._

 _Since we smiled at each other._

 _Since we hung out._

 _Since we were Winter and Jacin._

 _Please, say we're still Winter and Jacin._

 _I want to still be Winter and Jacin._

 _You keep avoiding me every time I approach you in the hallways, in our classes, at the cafeteria, in the school's parking lot. Or that one time when I knocked on your door and you didn't answer. I know for a fact that it was only you in the house because Levana's BMW was missing._

 _Or when I sent you over fifty text messages during the course of those ten days and becoming frustrated with you, me, us, this whole situation at night._

 _Or when I'd slip little notes in the slot of your lockers for you to read, only for you to dismiss._

 _Or when I'd see your red-rimmed golden-brown eyes that got watery that first day. I try to respect your wishes, keep out of your space, save you from all your_ _embarrassment, but it's torture._

 _This is getting ridiculous and out of hand... I know you didn't read my first letter. Because if you did, you wouldn't be avoiding me at all cost now. Your eyes would gleam that mischievous sparkle it would have, only for me, instead of them saddened and ashamed. Because you'd be talking to me right now, and we'd be telling each other exactly how we felt about each other. We'd both be excited because we both feel the same way about each other. Despite Levana, we could find a way to be together. We could do this. All we need is one more year before we can run away with each other. Before we go to college. Before we-_

 _I'm getting ahead of myself. But you get the picture._

 _I stopped you at school today but something strange happened._

 _Aside from you averting your pretty eyes elsewhere, you..._

 _You called after that senior, Aimery. The one you hate. The one I hate._

 _You ran towards him, and you gave him a hug. A hug that you used to always reserve for me._

 _When you all pulled away from each other, I could tell you were feigning a smile for him. Because you don't like him. And I know this._

 _You **can't** like him when you like **me** and I love **you**._

 _That smile was always for **me** that you feigned for **him**._

 ** _He_** _leaned in to **kiss** **you** but you turned swiftly so that **he** kissed your **cheek**._

 _By the time you turned your cheek I was already turning my back at the scene._

 _I don't know what that was about. But it stung. It stung like a dozen bees. It stung like getting a paper cut._

 _It was that type of stung that occurs when your best friend proclaims they have a crush on you and the minute you share your feelings back it gets thrown in your face._

 _And you wonder why I'm as cold as can be. But for you, I let them slip._

 _It's funny how you said you're afraid of getting rejected, because that's exactly what you did to me._

 _I have more to lose than you. And that **is** you._

 _That **was** you._

 _No, it still **is** you._

 _Regardless of whatever happened today, it's still you, Winter._

 _Love, Jacin._

 _p.s. picturing us would be paradise._


	4. Chapter 4

Jacin made up his mind that he had enough of the foolishness.

Winter didn't want to make the first move or talk to him at all? So be it. He would find a way to approach her instead. He would not go another day without talking to his best friend. His only friend. The friend he loved so much, the friend he loved _too_ much for it to be just a friendly love.

He sent his last letter to her by slipping it in the slot of her locker at school once again. Jacin didn't even want to stick around for when she read it, if she did.

He decided it was perfect timing to confront her at her own house once Levana drove out of their driveway that night, leaving Winter all alone.

Mustering up his already withered yet desperate courage, he ringed the doorbell. Waiting.

Hoping she would not decide to do what normal people did and peep outside the peephole or the window.

Thankfully, she did not.

She opened the door, and Jacin stepped in like he did a million times before.

Winter's facial expression went from shocked to irritated with a twist of worry in a split second. She was still by the door, trying to decipher why Jacin was in her house and how'd she let him get in so easily.

Jacin swiftly shrugged off his jacket, glancing back at her. "You could close the door, ya know."

Winter furrowed her eyebrows. "And you could leave."

Her tone was slightly harsh but wavering, and that was all it took for him to approach her with slow steps. "Winter, this is ridiculous!"

"What's ridiculous?" she innocently feigned.

"This!" He half-yelled, gesturing his hands towards her. "What's happening - what's _been_ happening between you and me. Close the door."

Winter flickered her eyes to the polished white floor, and Jacin could see her breaths turned shallow. "Please, leave." Her voice was broken now.

"Winter-"

"Just go," her voice was growing weaker and weaker by the second, she was starting to hyperventilate.

"I just-"

"I don't want to talk about it right now."

"I love you," he confessed.

Winter's panicked eyes darted up to his fearful ones. He feared he had said the wrong thing even when he said the right thing. He feared he'd be rejected.

Silence.

It seemed like both of them stopped breathing before Jacin made the first move, gliding towards her and closing the door behind them.

He sighed, "it's about time I told you that. About time you _knew_ that." He rambled on, his voice as quiet as a mouse. As quiet as it was a few minutes ago, keeping the solemness of the air alive.

He did not know why he kept this awkwardness alive, though.

"I love you, Winter. I love you a lot. I don't know why I never told you. Maybe because I thought you already knew? I don't know... I don't know. And I've been needing you these past days. Like people need the sun because it offers them light in their world. And shelter. And happiness. I'm the happiest when I'm with you, if you have not noticed. When I got your letter and you found out, a day turned into days. Days turned into a week. A week turned into some weeks. How long are we going to jump the gun? How come we couldn't get this squashed the day of?"

He still paid attention to Winter, his eyes never averting hers. Her eyes were watery, tears waiting to drip down her cheeks.

He continued.

"You know, if you ever gave me a chance, you know I would not have made fun of you. I wouldn't have hurt you. I wouldn't have hated you. I honestly did not know what was going through your head every time you passed me by, ignored my calls and messages, turned the other direction in the hallways. You know me _too much_ to do that to you. Don't you? Because I would've said I love you back. I _did_ say I love you in those letters I sent you. Did you even read them?"

Winter gulped down a huge lump in her throat, taking big breaths in and out. "Jacin-"

"But then I saw you with Aimery," Jacin's tone turned harsh like a sharp pain to the heart. "You passed me by to hug him. _Him_. Out of all people him. The one I embrace my loathing for. The one you try to gulp down your disgust for. The one we joked about you never giving him a chance of any given day. But I guess we were wrong. Because you did. And you left me there with questions. You left me there rejected. You left me there on purpose to think all of those things. Its like I want to ask why but I don't want to know why. I don't want to know why you're with him instead of me or with that fool at all. But I want to know. I want to know why get my hopes up when you crushed them down and buried it in the ground the moment I saw you walk off with _him_." Jacin spat. It was a jab to the heart.

Winter broke down, continuously shaking her head violently. "Idontknowidontknowidontknow," she said with rushed breaths, her breathing starting to catch up with her again, her sniffles becoming louder. Jacin knew he couldn't watch her have a breakdown, he could never. Although his pending rage was resurfacing, that softness was still there. That care was still there.

That love was always there.

In a second, he was by her side, holding her close to him. He lifted his chin on her wild, curly black hair, letting her wet his white t-shirt. Letting her murmur whatever nonsense she needed to. He didn't mean to make her _cry_ , he simply wanted an explanation. Some answers.

When she started to calm down, he pulled away from her, needing to see her face. Her golden-brown eyes were now reddish, accentuating her tear-stained cheeks and slightly red nose that did not appear so obviously on her flawless dark brown skin.

Some sniffles.

Even more sniffles.

An abundance amount of sniffles until the sniffling stopped, her breathing slowed down at an evenly place.

Silence.

A small, timid "I love you," from her.

Jacin might have known this, but his heart couldn't help but skip a small beat. He both hated and loved that.

He started to hate it more than love it when she said something he never wanted to hear.

She whispered it so softly, so quietly that Jacin thought that Winter couldn't have said it. No, this was _not_ coming out of his best friend. Of his long-time crush. Of his possible childhood sweetheart.

He refused to believe it.

A five-worded sentence that crushed his heart.

Tears rolling down her tainted cheeks again.

The sniffles came back, building up as she declared the statement word by word.

"But I can't love you."


	5. Chapter 5

_7 years later._

* * *

"Why are you still with him?"

"What choice do I have?"

"You could leave," I set down my teacup full of tea on the table. Eyeing her with that look I always gave her, the look that still remained with over twenty-four years of friendship and a lifetime of secret, strong feelings.

She simply shook her head, her ebony black curls going with her. "I _can't_."

"What are you talking about?" My voice grew a bit louder. Confused, I was. Angry, I was. Angry at the life she chose with _him_. Angry at this all happening. Angry at her step-mother for taking her away from me. As down as the fading autumn trees outside that started to lose their color, feeling as defeated as a withering flower. I felt like I was being played like a piano.

After seven years of this madness, those stupid and sinful letters, the colleges I refused in order to stay to a university near by Winter and the dreadful Aimery's college, we were here.

Levana had a plan to set them up from the moment she met Aimery and learned of his wealth when we first entered high school. Not only could she befriend more wealthy people and rob the jackpot, but she could also make Winter stray away from _me_. And what better way to do so than to send her secret love letters my way? Only for Winter to withdraw from me, the one time she did was the one time she got away. The one time she was out of my sight for no longer than twenty four hours. The one time Levana finalized her plan on her and Aimery to be married off after college.

We had all been fresh out of college at the fresh age of twenty-three, and I had just bought my new apartment downtown, away from the suburbs we all resided in. Away from the good memories that could easily be washed away with the bad and painful ones that was brought to me my last years there. Of course, I would visit my parents once every other month. But I could not stand going back there. I could not stand looking at that house across the street. Could not stand looking at that sinful grass she had trespassed on and those cursed letters that forever changed our lives.

You'd think I could not stand to look at Winter's face, but we'd been secretly seeing each other throughout these seven years while she was to be with Aimery. They had no kids. They were not married, at least yet. They weren't even engaged.

So why was she stalling time?

"As in," her voice was dreamy, but right now it could not sooth me with the nightmare that plagued us years before. "I have nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. I can't escape him or _them_."

I shook my head rigorously, banging on my table. "We could run away together! Catch a plan ticket? Go far far away?" My inward suppressed thoughts started to come out my mouth with an underlining angry tone. I was furious at this situation. At myself. At her. We could've done better. We could've handled that whole situation better.

We still had a chance at doing better. Our only chance, possibly. She was making it harder and harder for me to believe my hopeless suggestions and strategies, leaving me to only believe in idiotic fantasies.

Her light brown eyes grew watery, like little teardrops about to explode along a stream of waterfalls. "I'm scared."

A lump started to form in my throat. I tried looking through the blinds of the bustling city in my apartment that no one knew of, only my parents and Winter.

"The root of all evil is fear. If you keep living your life like this and not take a risk, you'll be doomed before you have a chance to consider saying yes. Winter, we could runaway _tonight_. We're grown, now. We have lives. We have cars. We have degrees. We can make something out of ourselves. I'm _too_ in love with you to let you go, and I know you feel the same way about me. The only thing Levana messed up on was not marrying you off earlier, and if you keep stalling time and staying in the suburbs where she is and he is like they both expect you to do, you're already giving her the benefit of the doubt. That you're not going anywhere. That you don't have a life to live. That you're a pawn in her game. Tell me, are you, really?"

Her sniffles were her answers.

I leaned in closer to the table, whispering hushed words as if Levana herself were lurking these secluded halls. "You were free from her game the minute you went away to college. The minute you got your own place in the suburbs. But you'll really be free if you turn away and go with me."

Her sniffles were growing louder and louder now, her eyes red and puffy. "Where would we go?"

I shrugged, never taking my icy blue eyes away from hers. "Somewhere far away from here."

 **To be continued...**

* * *

 **Like I said, this was only planned to be a short story to get my mind off the Rampion Boyz Chronicles. Sorry if the ending was crappy. It kind of just came to me.**


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